A Workout Routine For People Who Have Depression
There are people who claim that a great workout routine can cure depression. They’re the same people who think that the government is conspiring to keep your teeth clean by waterboarding your brain with fluoride. Exercise definitely helps you feel better when you get the clinically severe blues, but it isn’t a replacement for a good old, chaise longue and a therapist. We often become sedentary from sad-think, so let’s get moving.
Wake Up
It’s hard waking up when life seems meaningless. Getting up for the sake of getting up. Hiss at the midday sun as it comes shining through the blinds. This is sometimes the worst part of a depressed person’s day: the realization that they have to live again. Yay!
You’re going to want to read the optimistic sticky notes that you’ve strewn everywhere. Strain those eyes trying to find meaning in your sticky-note platitudes.
Burn Energy: Worry About The Day To Come
Your brain uses a lot of the energy you take in. You might be thinking about something that happened two hours ago or two years ago. It doesn’t matter to your brain, the masochist. While this workout shouldn’t include pessimistic thinking, you also don’t want to not count those calories burned.
Stretch In Bed
You don’t feel like getting out of bed, so stretch everything. You don’t need to be standing to get your stretching in. Stretch your eyes by searing your retinas with the backlight of your phone. These will help you get up and start moving.
Get Up
Here comes the most strenuous part of the workout. Finding the sheer willpower needed to get up. Nothing would be more delightful than if you could Rip-Van-Winkle your way towards happiness. Alas, such is not the case. You’ve got to get up. Whatever intellectual gymnastics you need to do, in order to get yourself up, do it. That glass is totally full!
Do At Least One [Insert Exercise]
Lie (prone) on the ground. Get back up. Whew! We did it: one-hundredth of a One-Punch-Man pushup regimen.
Lie (supine) on the ground. Do a situp. You’ll have to do at least one. That’s all I ask of you.
This is the mentality you should have. Do at least one rep. At least one set. When you’ve done one, do at least one more. Side note: it’s easier to find the motivation to work out when you have death metal playing in the background.
Shower
This is where you stretch more. Use the warm water to relax those muscles that have been stiffened by stress. This is the time where shower thoughts will pop in. This may not be the best place to examine your depression. We want to keep that thinking organ of yours moving, so let’s examine something that doesn’t make you feel sad: politics. Politics make people furious. Focus that anger into energy.
Drink Coffee Or Vape Nicotine
Hunter S. Thompson said “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” You should always consult your doctor regarding cheap solutions to something your insurance company wants a pound of flesh for.
You have clinical depression. No one should expect you to have anything but apathy and anhedonia, at all times. There’s no natural way you can run a marathon without having a bear following you.
You need the sweet relief of Mother Nature’s good stuff. Many workout mixes have caffeine. That doesn’t mean that it’s healthy. Lots of people who would judge you for not getting up would also judge you for using caffeine and nicotine, medicinally—because they love having opinions.
Walk
Walk around your living room area. Then, use that momentum like Voyager 1 and escape from your apartment’s sad-field. Go outside while it’s still sunny and soak up some rays. If you want to bring some music with you (only happy tunes or death metal), then by all means. Depending on what’s expected of you, that day, you should continue walking around, lie in the park, skip stones off the water, etc.
